Road Games Top 25

I'm not part of the Blogpoll (and really, it would be unforgivable if I were considering how hard it was to see games from Buenos Aires this year), but I'm putting together my own Top 25 anyway. As I said last year, these rankings are based on season-long performance, not “who would win right now.” Because that would be an exercise in conjecture and inherently debatable. Explanation at the bottom:

1) USC
2) Florida
3) Texas
4) Utah
5) Oklahoma
6) Penn State
7) TCU
8) Alabama
9) Texas Tech
10) Oregon
11) Ole Miss
12) Boise State
13) Ohio State
14) Oregon State
15) Georgia
16) California
17) Florida State
18) Virginia Tech
19) Oklahoma State
20) Iowa
21) LSU
22) Cincinnati
23) Missouri
24) West Virginia
25) Arizona

Here's the thing. The way the schedules are nowadays, most of the teams play a pretty weak slate. A great team should win all its games. But teams either have off days or happen to schedule opponents who are equal to the task. These days, such dream matchups are all the more rare. When multiple teams are tied in the loss column, some choose to disregard the loss and only look at the wins on their resumé. I tend to go the opposite way. Some losses are more forgivable than others.

USC was penalized for losing to a perceived lousy team. But as the season progressed, it became clear that Oregon State was much improved after their first two performances (thanks largely to the discovery of tailback Jacquizz Rogers). In addition, nobody seems to recall the Trojans' loss was a Thursday night road game. Year in, year out, we see more road teams struggle on weeknights than in any other type of game. There must be a backlash against them after all the rampant pro-USC coverage because I don't hear anyone pleading their case. I don't particularly like 'em, but to me, USC played the best football this year, including their absolutely flawless performance in the Rose Bowl. Penn State made a bunch of mistakes, but even with a perfect game would not have seen victory. Florida had a great season, but a home loss to Ole Miss is clearly worse, and USC generally dominated every game they played afterwards. Plus, I don't think that Oklahoma is that much better than Penn State anyway (one slot to be precise).

What to do about Utah? Like it or not, style points matter in college football. Utah barely escaped against Oregon State, Air Force, New Mexico, TCU and, um, Michigan. Nobody was lamenting the supposed shoddy treatment for Utah until they handled Alabama. Now they're national champions? Alabama was overrated all season thanks to their opening-weekend victory over Clemson (who, incidentally, ended up at 7-6 and fired their coach). 'Bama played a schedule with few heavyweights, but included Arkansas State and Western Kentucky. They failed to dominate any of their stronger opponents. Yes, I know they're the SEC West Champion, but this was the weakest SEC year in a while. In my mind, the result of the Sugar Bowl did more to validate the notion that 'Bama wasn't that good than the fact that Utah is the best in the land.

I feel like I have TCU too high (credit for the bowl win, but what else did they really accomplish this year?), but I don't know who else to put in that slot, so they remain #7.

I'm left feeling very disappointed by this season, and not just because Michigan was terrible. As I said in the aforementioned posting, I have come around on the playoff debate. It is inevitable (eventually), and at this point it is best for the game, as long as they keep it to six teams or fewer (as many others have noted, look no further than this week's NFC championship game for supportive evidence). Given the current system, Oklahoma didn't deserve the BCS nod, and I can't fathom why any voter outside of Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer would have put them where they did. Sure, their schedule was slightly stronger than that of Texas, but they were beaten by the Longhorns, whereas Texas lost a road night game to a strong team by one second. Haven't we now learned about teams rolling up extravagant point totals yet not having a consistent defense. I said no conjecture, but I do believe that Texas could take Florida head to head. As it stands, they each played Oklahoma evenly, though the Sooners made a lot more errors against Florida. So we must yet again lament the matchup that should have been, just like we do seemingly every other year.

Black is White, Green is Red, Mauve is Purple

Odometer: 8644
Location: Garland, TX

Seriously, what in God’s green earth is going on this season? If anyone can tell you they know what surprises lay in front of us, they’re lying. All we thought we knew we do not know. One of the many wondrous things about this game is that every season has different stories, different themes, and different heroes. The game will always provide its own drama. For all the glory showered on Boise State’s defeat of Oklahoma last year, no one could have predicted the excitement that game would produce. Those of us who saw it live experienced the icing on the cake of another totally unique year in college football.

Comparisons can be made of different teams, and people can try to apply labels to the story, but they can’t control any of it. The House of Mouse labeled this past weekend “Gutcheck Saturday” and was widely mocked across the internet for doing so. Because they can’t paint a weekend before it happens. For all their talk of gut checks, and despite an intense, fantastic game played by LSU and Florida, the biggest game of the week was one nobody paid mind to until it was over. After seeing USC play twice in person, I’d been telling people that there was no way they would go undefeated. That their wideouts drop too many passes. That their defense can make some plays, but can’t consistently shut opponents down. That the Pac Ten is just too tough for them to run the table this year. But never in a million years did I think they would lose to 41 point underdog Stanford.

A while back, I had a conversation with Brandon from MWCB and he said, “This has been one of the most exciting seasons I’ve seen in my life.” That was two weeks into the season. Before Oklahoma lost at Colorado. Before Auburn upset Florida. Before South Florida started the first half of their season undefeated. Before Cal and Oregon went down to the last few inches in the last few seconds. And before USC lost their first home game since September of 2001. And nobody knows what’s going to happen next.

Trojan fans, your Michigan counterparts know how you feel. You’re stunned. You don’t even know if this is really happening right now. It’s exactly like that time your first real girlfriend dumped you – seemingly out of the blue. You thought everything was fine, and you were at least going to last through to the next month or two. And then suddenly, it was over. All that time you put in, you thought you were really building to something. After the shock wore off, in the back of your mind, you started to understand that you should have seen it coming. The signs were there – you just didn’t want to notice them. So you said, “I can get over this. I can move forward and things will be OK.” Unfortunately for us, Oregon came to town and beat the holy hell out of Michigan – which of course was exactly like seeing that same girlfriend at the movies with the point guard on the basketball team just a week later, knocking us further down the ladder of despair. But eventually, you heal a bit. You bounce back and start believing a little more with each passing week. Of course, that’s only if your team manages to go back to winning. Lucky for you, Arizona is coming to down. According to Jeff Sagarin, they’re worse than both Stanford and Appalachian State, and I believe him.

Before anyone decides to label this the “Year of the Upset”, bear in mind that the season is only half over. We don’t have the first clue about what’s going to happen next. And that’s just one of the things that make this sport so special. No matter what the experts say, we’re in for a wild ride to the end of this one. I for one am happy to be paying attention no matter what they choose to call it.